Nintendo is predicted to have a new handheld console, dubbed Nintendo NX, in the shops by the end of the year.

IHS senior principal analyst Hiroshi Hayase has been shuffling his tarot cards and thinks that the new console will be one of two next-generation devices from Nintendo.

Chatting on the HIS display forum Hayase said: “We expect a small recovery in shipments of flat-panel displays for game devices because of Nintendo’s new game hardware expected to be released in 2016.”

Hayase did not confirm or deny the size of the portable console’s display, but added that this would be a standalone device. This means that it is different from the Wii U GamePad that needs a Wii U to work. It is pretty useless on its own despite having a personal screen. This makes the Nintendo NX a good bet.

Nintendo is not saying anything but if Hayase is right we would expect to see Nintendo NX on display at E3 in June.

Beancounters working for Forbes are predicting that Tegra could end up being a big money spinner for Nvidia. The report said that Tegra and other related products contribute close to 7 per cent of Nvidia's profits, but the the division has the potential to become the largest revenue contributor

The analysts say that after a successful 2011 with its dual-core Tegra2 processors, Nvidia introduced its Tegra3 processors, which excel more than two times in speed and performance than Tegra2. Tegra2 featured in 15 smartphones last year, while Tegra3 is expected to power around 30 devices in 2012. It also has the strongest software system for graphics in the mobile world.

Nvidia expects to ship about 25 million Tegra processors in 2012, almost double its shipments in 2011.

IDC Asia-Pacific has been shuffling its tarot cards and has seen rebound of the PC market in the first quarter of 2012 as well as a tall dark stranger entering its life. Such predictions are optimistic as they follow a 33 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Juan-Jin Ng, market analyst for personal systems research at IDC said that 2012 is more promising. He said that the hard disk drive (HDD) supply will normalise by April 2012, there will be public segment rollouts in the Philippines and consumer demand from the launch of Intel's new Ivy Bridge processor.

The Philippines is a good bellwether as it was hit hard by hard disk drive (HDD) supply shortages since manufacturing plants in Thailand had their operations thrown into disarray by severe flooding. The strengthening peso against the US dollar meant that the remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were worth less than before. In addition, the seasonal typhoons that hit Metro Manila further put pressure on consumer spending.

Mini-notebooks, which are usually the major contributor to the Philippine PC market, faced the most significant drop in the fourth quarter of 2011 at 44 per cent. Telco bundling programs for smart phones were dead in the water in fourth quarter and this too affected overall mini-notebook shipments.

Tarot readers working for the analyst outfit Ovum say that the market for global service provider switching and routing market will hit revenues of $20.5bn in 2017. Currently this is sitting at $13.3bn in 2010, with a rise of 6.4 per cent over seven years, predicts Ovum.

In a new forecast report, the independent market analyst outfit reveals IP traffic growth is driving strong demand for switches and routers in service provider networks. This growth is expected to accelerate further as fixed and mobile broadband subscriber penetration rates increase and consumer video applications drive ever-growing levels of network traffic.

David Krozier, principal analyst at Ovum said that carriers will need to invest in growing their IP infrastructure or risk losing subscribers. In developing nations, carriers are building out their 3G wireless networks, while developed nations are investing in LTE to accommodate mobile bandwidth demand, he said.

North America was the largest of Ovum's geographical regions in 2011 and the Asia-Pacific region, which contains two of the top three global economies, China and Japan, was a close second.

Ovum forecasts 9.7 per cent growth in the Asia-Pacific market in 2012 and 4.0 per cent growth in North America. The companz expects the Asia-Pacific region to surpass North America as the largest regional market for telecom switches and routers equipment for 2012.

Black Friday week was a week of Xbox 360 sales that Microsoft is pretty happy to crow about. The company partnered with retailers to move Xbox 360 consoles, and move they did. Of course, part of the partnering was due to Microsoft’s work with retailers to offer some outstanding deals; which, of course, helped bump the sales numbers up.

According to the latest NPD sales numbers, Microsoft saw 960,000 Xbox 360 consoles sold in the U.S., with additional Kinect offerings in both add-on and bundle trim contributing to another 750,000 units sold. These numbers only cover sales in the U.S. from Saturday, November 19th to Friday, November 25th, which means that Cyber Monday sales are not included.

The numbers prove what many analysts have been telling us, which is that with the lower prices on the consoles many who were Wii owners, or have children that are a little older now, are moving to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles this holiday season. We have to agree that we expect to see continued high sales volume of consoles this holiday season as many households upgrade.

Analysts are not impressed by Nokia’s first Windows Phone handsets and their expectations are rather low by smartphone standards.

How low? Well, Bernstein Research believes Nokia will shift no more than 500,000 units of its flagship Lumia 800. Pacific Crest originally expected sales of about 2 million by Christmas, but it has now revised its estimate to, you’ve guessed it, 500,000.

Bernstein analysts reckon Nokia’s Lumia phones are not competitively priced and they lack any breakthrough innovation. Analyst Pierre Ferragu believes the Lumia 800 could turn out to be a dud and it simply does not have what it takes to take on Apple or Android phones.

Analyst outfit Canalys announced that HTC has overtaken Samsung and Apple in US shipments, whereas RIM dropped about 58 percent from one year ago.

Apparently, HTC shipped more than 5.7 million in Q3 2011 in the US, which is almost a quarter of the market. The outfit claims Samsung has overtaken Apple with its shipments hitting 4.9 million. Apple’s US smartphone shipments on the other hand were at 4.6 million in the same period. Note that the shipments refer to retailers and carriers, rather than actual users.

Canalys said that HTC derives its results from “compelling and differentiated” products as well as strong 4G Android lineup. RIM, however, seems to have not had such compelling products as the company’s shipments dropped as much as 58 percent from a year ago. The company market share has dropped below 10 percent for the first time, although its losses have been somewhat compensated by strong worldwide growth.

The outfit said that Android holds almost 70 percent share in the US and 57 percent worldwide, driven by Samsung, HTC and others.

Analyst outfit Forrester is shocked that more than 41 per cent of companies ban employees using Apple toys on their networks. This appears to be the result of a new Forrester survey of IT executives at North American and European companies which says that evil IT management will not allow employee-owned Macs access to any company resources, even Web-based e-mail.

Forrester asked 590 IT executives and technology decision-makers if employee-owned Macs are granted access to resources like Web-based e-mail, hosted applications and virtual desktops, internal networks, and native e-mail applications said they would not let an Apple gismo have any access at all. The report is pro-Apple and claims that companies are unfairly prejudiced against the Mac, it ignores the fact that a third of companies block access from any employee-owned computer or device.

Forrester says that since “People are bringing Macs to Work—It’s time to repeal prohibition.” The logic is of course that when people start bringing in rabid dogs to work companies should also set up a petting park. Forrester analyst David Johnson wines that it is all because of brainwashing from Microsoft which has had two decades of Microsoft management traditions are either prohibiting Macs on the company network or limiting their support to executives only.

Forrester notes that Macs pose technology challenges to IT shops accustomed to Windows. But these challenges can be overcome, and giving employees more choice will improve productivity, Forrester says Johnson made the claim that employees who seek out new technologies tend to be more productive and serve customers more effectively. Macs today are being freewheeled into the office by executives, top sales reps, and other workaholics, he writes. So therefore they must be good.

What Johnson failed to point out in his pro-Apple sales pitch was that there is a damn fine reason why companies keep Apple toys off their networks. Firstly Apple networking has always been inferior to any other system. Apple toys are easy to hack and notoriously bad at correcting security flaws which means that a security department has an hope hole on their network for a long time. Secondly Apple gear does not play very well with other gear, which means that IT departments have to spend a fortune setting up new kit so the Apple fanboys in their company can listen to Coldplay.

Lastly there is a fundamental flaw in allowing an outside company onto your network which runs an walled garden of information and networking systems that you do not control. Rather than allowing “more choice” on the network, Apple gear is exclusive.

Analysts at Ovum have added up the numbers and divided by their shoe size and worked out that the IT services market suffered a severe hit in the second quarter of 2011. Ovum beancounters say that the value of new contract signings falling to its lowest level in more than eight years.

The analyst states that the total contract value (TCV) of deals announced in Q2 2011 was just $19 billion, down 40 per cent on the same period last year and the lowest quarterly figure since Q1 2003. Ovum found that the number of deals recorded also slumped for the fourth consecutive quarter, to just 384. Not only was this down more than 20 per cent on the number tracked during the second quarter of 2010, but it was also the lowest number of deals recorded by Ovum in a single quarter since Q4 2007.

Ed Thomas, Ovum analyst and author of the report said that after a disappointing start to the year, things went from bad to worse in the second quarter of 2011 with this very weak performance in contract signings. He said that there was a lack of large deals on offer was a major contributing factor, combined with the on-going lack of demand from private sector firms, particularly in the US.

“In previous quarters, the buoyancy of the public sector outsourcing market has gone some way toward offsetting the lacklustre returns from enterprise clients. However, on this occasion government spending on IT services projects also took a hit, with a notable lack of large-scale projects on offer,” Thomas added.

Analysts Ovum have warned that Web developers are not putting enough importance on ensuring websites and applications are secure.

The outfit claims that all this has led to security breaches many high-profile companies have faced in recent times. In a new report Ovum claims that attacks on the web facilities of companies such as Sony have happened due to a lack emphasis on security when they were built.

It said that web developers are placing too much importance on “cosmetics” such as the look, speed, and ease of access, and not enough on writing secure code, leaving websites and applications vulnerable to hackers. Andy Kellett, Ovum analyst and author of the report, said that over the past three years, many respected companies and their web facilities have been targeted by malware. These include Sony, RSA, and several financial institutions, proving that even the most well-respected organizations can be compromised.

He said that developers have put too much emphasis on web cosmetics, the look and feel, the speed, and the ease of access. Not enough importance has been placed on the requirement to write secure code and deliver a hardened infrastructure. In the last three years, up to 70 per cent of the web’s top 100 sites have either hosted malicious content, or have contained redirect facilities to illegitimate websites.

According to the report, real-time analysis and inspection of web pages and their content is required to ensure that users remain safe. The report also finds that the data-protection element of the technology has a growing role to play in protecting businesses from the malicious attacks of hackers keen to steal high-value data. Kellett added that the use of Web 2.0 services, the requirement for social media access in a business and personal context, and the introduction of an increasing number of new mobile devices mean that the real-time elements of web protection have to deal with the combined requirements of corporate and social use.